US army fails to meet recruiting goals - again

[mdh]

Folks,

Iraq appears to be having a negative impact on US Army recruiting. Not sure if this item has been posted - according to reports the US army has failed to meet recruiting goals for the fourth time in a row and this has prompted a lift in the recruit age limit up to 40 years old.

Cheers, mdh

WASHINGTON (AP) - The army appears likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal for the first time since 1999, raising longer-term questions about a military embroiled in its first protracted wars since switching from the draft to a volunteer force 32 years ago.

Many young people and their parents have grown more wary of army service because of the likelihood of being dispatched on combat tours to Iraq or Afghanistan, opinion polls show. U.S. troops are dying at a rate of two a day in Iraq, more than two years after President George W. Bush declared that major combat operations had ended.

The army says today's economy offers attractive alternatives to many high school and college graduates.

The recruiting statistics appear to bear that out. Officials said Wednesday that although the army will not release its numbers until Friday, it fell about 25 per cent short of its target of signing up 6,700 recruits in May. The gap would have been even wider but for the fact that the target was lowered by 1,350.

The army said it lowered the May target to "adjust for changing market conditions," knowing that the difference will have to be made up in the months ahead.

The army also missed its monthly targets in April, March and February - each month worse than the one before. In February it fell 27 per cent short; in March the gap was 31 per cent, and in April it was 42 per cent.

"It's like having a persistent drought," said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute. "At some point when you have drought conditions you have to institute water rationing, and that's what you potentially face in the military if it goes on long enough. You would get to a stage where you don't have enough people to staff your organizations."

Prior to February, the last time the army had missed a monthly recruiting goal was May 2000.

The Army National Guard and Army Reserve are even farther behind in recruiting this year.

Lt.-Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the army's chief of personnel, said in an interview that despite the recent setbacks the army remains cautiously optimistic that it will make up the lost ground this summer - traditionally the most fruitful period of the year for recruiters - and reach the full-year goal of 80,000 enlistees.

"One number matters: 80,000," Hilferty said. "The army's fiscal 2005 goal was, is and remains 80,000 recruits."

Others, speaking privately, said the official optimism is sagging rapidly. They note that with only four months left in the budget year, the army is at barely 50 per cent of its goal. Recruiters would have to land more than 9,760 young men and women a month, on average, to reach the 80,000 target by the end of September.

In other words, they would have to far exceed their official targets, which range from 5,650 to 9,250 a month.

With the summer recruiting season in mind, the army has added hundreds of extra recruiters, raised the enlistment bonus for four-year commitments to $20,000 US, and targeted more advertising at parents. Hilferty says the extra recruiters are being counted on to produce big results between now and September.

"They're better now than they were last month," he said. "Experience counts."

Goure said the prospect of reaching 80,000 is grim.

"I don't see them making it," he said.

If the slump ended next year the impact might not be great. But if it continues, as many expect, the consequences could be large.

The problem, if it lasts, would be particularly acute for the army because it is in the midst of a major expansion of its ranks - from about 482,000 soldiers in the active force to 512,000 - in order to complete a top-to-bottom redesign of its 10 combat divisions. That redesign is central to the army's "transformation" plan to become more agile and mobile - and to have more units available for duty in Iraq.

The Marine Corps also has missed monthly recruiting targets lately, but only by small margins. The air force and the navy, in contrast, are easily meeting their goals, in part because they play much smaller and less publicized roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. The navy is actually trying to shed thousands from its ranks.

Beyond the statistical comparisons, the military as a whole may be entering a period in which new approaches are needed to fill its ranks.

Charles Moskos, a sociology professor and expert on military personnel issues at Northwestern University, has said the army's recruiting woes are likely to persist until the children of upper-class America begin to enlist more readily. He also sees a possibility of the services relying more on non-Americans to sign up.

Moskos said in an interview Wednesday that of the 750 males in his graduating class at Princeton University in 1956, more than 400 went on to serve in the military. Of the 1,100 males and females in last year's Princeton class, eight joined.

"That's the difference," he said.

 

[tomahawk6]

The reserves went to 40 not the active Army. The age limit is a factor of retirement a soldier has to be able to qualify for retirement.
Reservists cant retire until age 60 [Congress wants to change this to 55]. To join the Army the max age is 34 - unless you have prior service credit.

I like Moskos alot and read his stuff through the years. But he is an advocate of a draft. When he graduated from Princeton there was a draft. Today there isnt. I havent met a senior officer that advocates a return to the draft. Instead the Army is willing to pay big bucks in the form of bonus' just to enlist. Another interesting fact is that re-enlistments in the combat arms are high. Recruiting for combat arms is good. What is lagging are the non-combat arms MOS'.

 

[Infanteer]

Interesting article - there is alot of implicit ideas in it:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The army appears likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal for the first time since 1999, raising longer-term questions about a military embroiled in its first protracted wars since switching from the draft to a volunteer force 32 years ago.

This raises an interesting problem - are modern liberal democracies able to field standing, professional Armies in protracted wars?  Canada was able to fight WWI and WWII with volunteers (except for a very small and controversial percentage of conscripts), but this was with a specific mission (defeat Germany).  Vietnam was sustained by a hugely unpopular draft that was one part of the defeat.  The Persian Gulf War and the Falklands were high-intensity wars, but they were very short in duration and the troops wheeled home when all was said and done.  We've seen long missions to places like the Balkans, Cypress, and the Middle East, but these were not shooting wars, there were very low and irregular casualty counts, and the benefits for troops serving in these locales (generous leave, top-notch facilities, good pay incentives) far outweighed the risk (since that of death was relatively low).

Off all these wars mentioned above, none of them quite fit into the parameters of the above underlined question.  Is Iraq something new?  If it is, and it is liable to be a new norm, than I'm really beginning to doubt the ability of a modern liberal democracy to sustain an Army and fight.

Rome was able to do this for centuries - perhaps we should look back at how they did things?

Many young people and their parents have grown more wary of army service because of the likelihood of being dispatched on combat tours to Iraq or Afghanistan, opinion polls show. U.S. troops are dying at a rate of two a day in Iraq, more than two years after President George W. Bush declared that major combat operations had ended.

Are professional armies too much of a convenience?  It seems that people are easily persuaded to join when the payoff is high and the risk of actually doing the job seems low, but when actually asked to go to war, many seem to shy away.  Does anyone else see (or agree) with this observation?

The problem, if it lasts, would be particularly acute for the army because it is in the midst of a major expansion of its ranks - from about 482,000 soldiers in the active force to 512,000 - in order to complete a top-to-bottom redesign of its 10 combat divisions. That redesign is central to the army's "transformation" plan to become more agile and mobile - and to have more units available for duty in Iraq.

This, if true, seems to be at least part of the cause - it isn't easy to simply get 30,000 extra PY's; look at all the tap-dancing we are doing with 5,000 up here.

The Marine Corps also has missed monthly recruiting targets lately, but only by small margins.

Although the Marine Corps is a smaller organization, I'm sure that the ability to sell the Marine Corps as an Institution has some bearing in this.

The air force and the navy, in contrast, are easily meeting their goals, in part because they play much smaller and less publicized roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More evidence that it is combat and death in Iraq, and not a hot economy like the Army says, that is leading to a recruiting drought.

The navy is actually trying to shed thousands from its ranks.

I'm sure that there are a few barracks rooms in Ft Benning that would take them.

If taking Airmen and Sailors doesn't work, the US Army can always rely on the time honoured method of sending your cooks and your clerks to the front line.

Charles Moskos, a sociology professor and expert on military personnel issues at Northwestern University, has said the army's recruiting woes are likely to persist until the children of upper-class America begin to enlist more readily.

...and I'm not willing to bet that this will happen anytime soon - I don't think it has been a trend in history since Sparta.

If you wanted to encourage this (and I think it is a laudable goal) I think Heinlein's system of voluntary service as a requirement for full citizenship would be required.

He also sees a possibility of the services relying more on non-Americans to sign up.

Boy, isn't that something we've discussed here already, eh?

Moskos said in an interview Wednesday that of the 750 males in his graduating class at Princeton University in 1956, more than 400 went on to serve in the military. Of the 1,100 males and females in last year's Princeton class, eight joined.

"That's the difference," he said.

That really is a shame, you know - it really gives credence to Michael Moore wandering up to Congressmen and Senators and asking them if they wanted to get their children enlisted.  I wonder what the stats are for Canadian Universities.

 

[KevinB]

Sign me up coach.  I am going nowhere (good) fast in the CF these days...

 

[Infanteer]

I like Moskos alot and read his stuff through the years. But he is an advocate of a draft. When he graduated from Princeton there was a draft. Today there isnt. I havent met a senior officer that advocates a return to the draft. Instead the Army is willing to pay big bucks in the form of bonus' just to enlist.

No kidding - I can't think of many professional soldiers who, after understanding what it takes to become a professional, would advocate sticking an unwilling draftee in the foxhole beside them.

If the US wants to lose in Iraq (or on Terror in general), re-instituting the Draft is the best way to do it.

Another interesting fact is that re-enlistments in the combat arms are high. Recruiting for combat arms is good. What is lagging are the non-combat arms MOS'.

Very interesting, I wish that was included in the article.

What does this say?

-  That your most motivated recruits are going to end up in jobs that require the most motivation - the combat arms.  This is a good thing.

-  That the civilian market does indeed have an effect - the Support Trades, which are becoming increasingly technological, are the ones where similar skills in the civilian market off big bucks.  I'm willing to bet that recruiting for technical trades is hard because attrition is so high - do you know if this is true, Tomahawk?

-  That we need to reduce our CS/CSS establishment.  If it is hard to fill these trades and  hard to keep them from getting themselves killed in theater, then we must seriously look at increasing the self-sustainability of Army units at the Battalion/Brigade level through measures of austerity and logistical innovation.

 

[Infanteer]

Sign me up coach.   I am going nowhere (good) fast in the CF these days...

I tried - I spoke with a lawyer, Matt Fisher, and PJDog and it was generally agreed upon that I didn't really have a chance.  Give it another year or two though, and the US Military will be welcoming Canadian citizens.

 

[KevinB]

It CAN be done.  But it requires time and money.

I agree on your time table.

 

[tomahawk6]

The subject of the draft is floated by the left as a clever means to hamstring the administration. On its face it seems like a good idea.
But the dem's are anti-military and todays pol's cut their teeth on the Vietnam War protests. They want a draft to curb the use of the military. Second they think a draft would be very unpopular and something they can use to undermine the military. The powers that be feel its cheaper to lure people with money. A new recruit can get $20,000 for signing up for 4 years. Further bonus' are available every 3-4 years. Another alternative is civilianizing jobs that the Army is having a hard time filling.

 

[tomahawk6]

Infanteer you are correct about the technical/support jobs being hard to fill. The Army hoped to lure RIFed sailors and airmen but the army deploys and gets dirty/uncomfortable which turns off many of these guys. But if they want to stay til retirement some will attempt the readjustment. So far the program is a bust but maybe that will change over time. It is impossible to match the military retirement in the private sector. Since we dont have free healthcare people may stay in just for that benefit.

The real concern is the turnover in the reserve force and poor recruiting. To save the reserves more bonus' may be offered as well.

 

[Krazy-P]

this is sort of off topic, but they should be offering signing bonuses to canadians too. but the only people getting money to stay in are pilots.

 

[mdh]

Is Iraq something new?  If it is, and it is liable to be a new norm, than I'm really beginning to doubt the ability of a modern liberal democracy to sustain an Army and fight.

Rome was able to do this for centuries - perhaps we should look back at how they did things?

To paraphrase Moltke, very inaccurately, patriotism rarely survives contact with the enemy.

I'm not really surprised about the drop in recruitment.  The problem for soldiers fighting real wars is that they have a tendency to get killed. And that's never been a great selling feature. Word tends to get around.

But I don't think it's something new. We make WW2 a benchmark for patriotic duty and sacrifice- but the glow of post-war nostalgia has tended to blur what really happened during that conflict and what the participants really thought about it at the time. (Read Paul Fussell's Doing Battle for a fascinating and highly cynical take on the US Army in WW2 from a writer who was nearly killed as an infantry platoon commander).

Although Canada had a volunteer army - the draft was evenutally necessary to maintain manpower (and this was later in the war when there was no moral ambiguity about Hitler, compared to the inter-war years when there were a lot of fascist sympathisers around.)

But you raise an interesting point about the ability of liberal democracies to fight a sustained war. Iraq is rapidly becoming an unpopular cause because it appears to have no end game and, according to recent polls, has failed to make Americans feel more secure.

As Tomahawk pointed out that the US left is actively exploiting the fear of a draft, and I worry about the political implications down the road. Can the war continue without public support? If so for how long?

As for potential recruits, Iraq must look like weird place to your average 18 year old, populated by blood-thirsty fanatics where soldiers risk instant and anonymous death in some dusty shytehole. And the realities of combat are there on the nightly news to reinforce the impression of growing futility (as inaccurate as that may be).

I'm not sure there is any easy solution to this except to preservere, and hope Washington doesn't lose its nerve.

cheers, mdh

 

[mdh]

I found these items (published in March in the Christian Science Monitor)  which add another interesting dimension to this topic, cheers, mdh

Blacks, women avoiding US Army

Army study says recruiting all-volunteer force 'increasingly difficult.'

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com


A study conducted by the Army last year and posted recently on a Defense Contracting Command website (but since removed after news stories discussed the study) indicates that women and young black men are increasingly staying away from the Army. The poll, based on interviews with 3,236 youth ages 16 to 24, showed that "recruiting an all-volunteer Army in times of war is getting increasingly difficult."
Associated Press reports that these trends, combined with "the negative effects of the Army's image as a last-resort career choice for what one study called the 'average Joe,'" mean the military, and the Army in particular, could be entering a "prolonged recruting slump" just at the time when the US government wants to increase the Army's numbers.

"More African-Americans identify having to fight for a cause they don't support as a barrier to military service," concluded an August 2004 study for the Army. It also said attitudes toward the Army among all groups of American youth have grown more negative in recent years. "In the past, barriers were about inconvenience or preference for another life choice," the study said. "Now they have switched to something quite different: fear of death or injury."

The number of blacks in the Army's recruiting classes has dropped 41 percent over the past five years, from 23.9 percent in 2000 to 14 percent last year. The number of women has dropped 13 percent. AP reports that the possibility of being sent to Iraq is the "biggest turn off" for both groups.

Stars and Stripes reported Friday that the Army study noted black youth are strongly affected by the views of "influencers" - parents, teachers, coaches, clergy - and their views of the conflict in Iraq. The paper also reported that the Pentagon's own Youth and Influencer Polls, conducted last May, show that administration policies in Iraq have also caused fewer blacks to enlist.

While the war reduced the likelihood of youth in general to join the military, states the Youth Poll, 'Black youth reported being more negatively affected. Black youth were less supportive of US troops' presence in Iraq, less likely to feel the war was justified, more disapproving of the Bush administration's handling of foreign affairs and more disapproving of its use of US military forces than were whites or Hispanics.'

The Washington Post pointed out that the 14 percent recruitment figure now matches the actual percentage of blacks in the American population. Meanwhile, Hispanics, Asiams, Pacitic Islanders and whites are enlisting in slightly higher numbers. The Post also points out that fear of serving in Iraq is not the only factor reducing black enlistment.

'I think it's bad for the Army in the long run because it makes their recruiting more difficult as they had become dependent on the overrepresentation of African Americans,' said David R. Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. But, he said, 'it's good for the military in the long run to have it more representative of the population. African Americans are simply finding alternatives other than the military for their post-high-school trajectories.'

 

[tomahawk6]

Once again a somewhat slanted view. The Army was the employer of choice from WW2 until recently among blacks. The Army led
the nation in desegregation and offering advancement during a time when prejudice was common. Now a new minority is stepping up to serve their country - hispanics. There are also some 40,000 foreigners serving in the US military. The drop in black recruitment
may mean that their economic situation has improved to the point where military service may not be as attractive. However, I think that it could also mean that fewer blacks may meet the Army's tough medical/education requirements. This could be reversed with an ad campaign pointing out the advantages of military retirement/benefits.

 

[mdh]

The drop in black recruitment
may mean that their economic situation has improved to the point where military service may not be as attractive.

Tomahawk6,

Or it could be that the war is really is more unpopular among African-Americans who are more traditionally tied to the Democratic Party and who tended to support John Kerry.

One of the standard attacks (and fairly effective as a cheaper form of class war agitprop) by the US left during the Vietnam war was that the poor and economically disadvantaged carried a disproportionate burden in providing front-line troops.

And it's interesting to note that in the above media reports there are distinct echoes of that criticism wrt to Iraq - (what with white, well-heeled Ivy League graduates in extremely short supply as Army volunteers. Is it only a matter of time before the Officer Corps starts recruiting Calleys again?)

In a pretty good history of the 1970s, David Frum noted that the US Army was severely stressed by its inability to attract a higher standard of leadership in the wake of the Vietnam War and the draft. 

And although I don't think Vietnam is analagous to Iraq, one wonders if this of social inequity is starting to have an impact on how the war is perceived among certain segments of American society.

As someone alluded to above, it gives another opening to (among others) that gruesome endomorph Michael Moore to continue hammering home the notion that only the poor end up fighting and dying for freedom in America.

Again I hope not - but aren't these warning signals?

Cheers, mdh

 

[tomahawk6]

www.strategypage.com

Plenty of Warriors, Not Enough Clerks

June 13, 2005: The U.S. Army continues to have problem attracting recruits for its non-combat jobs. All the other services are exceeding their recruiting goals this year, but the army is coming up short. The current fiscal year is eight months gone, and the army is 17 percent short of its annual recruiting goals. But all the other services met or exceeded their goals, putting overall recruiting short eight percent. That's some 8,000 troops, in a force of 1.4 million. The reserves are doing better, with an overall shortfall of a few thousand recruits in a force of 1.2 million.

In May, the army was 25 percent short in recruits for the active force, and has been short just about every month since January.  There's no shortage of warriors, it's the 85 percent of the jobs that involved clerical or maintenance tasks that not enough people want. The marines, which put their â Å“combatâ ? role up front when recruiting, are getting all the people they need. Despite the fact that the marines have a higher casualty rate than the army in Iraq, marine recruiters challenge potential recruits to find out if they are good enough to be a marine. But the army has long stressed the â Å“careerâ ? aspects of army service. This made sense, as only about 15 percent of army jobs involve combat. Since the 1970s, somewhat to the army's surprise, there has never been a shortage of recruits for these dangerous jobs. And until recently, there were plenty of recruits for the non-combat jobs. But when  Iraq was invaded in 2003, and non-combat troops were attacked frequently, the word got around. Parents, and many of the recruits, no longer saw the army as a safe place to go for a few years, to learn skills, get education benefits, and some good stuff to put on the resume.

While casualties are low in Iraq, the lowest the army has ever suffered in wartime, a disproportionate number of the killed and wounded are non-combat troops. Decades of army recruiting, and training, that played down the danger angle for non-combat troops. This has now  become a major recruiting problem. While the army never hid the fact that everyone in the army was, well, in a combat organization, the training and leadership over the last two decades has played down the possibility of combat, and combat injuries, for non-combat troops. As a result, the potential recruits feel, well, deceived. It's, like,â ? â Å“hey, dude, you didn't saying anything about getting shot or blown up.â ?

The army has added to the shock by hastily revising training for combat support troops. Now non-combat troops get the kind of intense combat training they have not received for over a decade. Back in the early 1990s, the army created a separate basic training systems for combat troops, because political pressure forced them to mix male and female recruits in basic training units. Since the women could not keep up with the men in the standard, very intense, basic, the â Å“non-combat basicâ ? was toned down so the female recruits could handle it. This change has gone unnoticed outside the army, but NCOs and officers know the problem well. The discipline of non-combat troops declined after basic training was watered down. It became pretty easy to tell the difference between combat and non-combat troops, even when they were out of uniform. The combat troops carried themselves like soldiers, while many of the non-combat types appeared to be civilians in uniform. This became a serious problem when many non-combat troops got shot at in 2003, and their lack of discipline and preparation for combat made them more likely to get hurt.

The army is not having any problems getting current troops to stay in, and plans to solve the recruiting problem by keeping the more intense training for non-combat troops, and offering more financial incentives for specific skills it is looking for. Army recruiting ads now stress the fact that we're at war, and its dangerous out there. More non-combat jobs will be replaced with civilians, and, slowly, the army will retool its image to the way it used to be. The new doctrine is that everyone in the army is a soldier, and everyone must be ready to deal with combat. Eventually, army recruiters will have the same kind of success the marines currently have. The marines have always made it clear that every marine must be ready for combat at all times.

 

[mdh]

I know of a few leaders who would disagree with D. Frum. 

Disagree with Frum? Heretic.  8)

cheers, mdh